


Reach For the Stars

by AiryLies (LaceLich)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Stardust Fusion, Eventual Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, M/M, McHanzo Week, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rancher!McCree, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Star!Hanzo, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8907613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaceLich/pseuds/AiryLies
Summary: What do stars do?They shine.Featuring Jesse McCree and the unfortunate, no good, very bad man who is not a man at all. But there's a place at Peacekeeper Ranch for everyone, even a fallen star like Hanzo Shimada.(The Stardust fusion AU that no one asked for but you're all getting anyway for McHanzo Week.)





	1. First Time

**Author's Note:**

> Am I late? Yes. Am I still doing this anyway? Yes. So here we go!
> 
>  **Prompt:** First time.
> 
> You don't get any more 'first time' than 'first chapter of a Stardust thing'.

The sky burned on Wednesday.

Well, if he was being particular and honest, the sky had burned all July, until not even the June bugs wanted to voice more than a token protest. He was pretty sure that he lost a bullet to the melted asphalt last Tuesday and he had to hang his hat on the porch to dry from the sweat. It was hot and dark, but that wasn't what made this evening so interesting to one Jesse McCree.

No, his attention was on the sky and the streak of roaring light that screamed across the horizon.

He folded his arm over his chest as he rested against the time-worn and sun-bleached porch railings, fingers gripped so tight his tan was lost in the cracks and knots of the pine. McCree’s skin sticks to the wood as he pressed his forehead against the post. It had been a long day and all he wanted was to curl up against the cool porcelain of the bathtub and wait out the sticky heat of late July evenings.

But the bright lights off in the distance mean that his evening’s plans have about as much chance of occurring as a snowball did at surviving in Hell. He sighed as the porch light flicked on, screen door opening with a tiny little screech, and a pair of feet padded out to stand by him.

Jesse McCree liked the little old lady who he had bought Peacekeeper Ranch from, and he liked the brash bear of a man that Miss Ana most definitely was not knocking boots with no ma’am, but he sometimes wished they would just pack up and set up a life somewhere else. Sure it was nice to see the smiles on all the kids’ faces when Gramma Ana and Grampa Reinhardt made breakfast in the mornings, but sometimes he just wanted a moment of peace and quiet all to himself without Miss Ana questioning him on when he was going to get himself a fella. If a man wanted to date another man, a man would go out and make himself available, that was all Jesse had to say on the matter.

But in moments like these, when Miss Ana padded out with her old military rifle slung over her shoulder and her man loomed in the doorway balancing the cast iron skillet he made flapjacks with in the palm of one meaty hand, Jesse McCree was mighty glad for their company.

Even in her nightgown, her snow white hair braided and coiled around her neck like an afterthought, Ana Amari was a sight to behold. Jesse had never been brave enough to ask where exactly an Egyptian with nerves of steel and a German who could bench press a cow had met, let alone how they even started dating or agreed to buy a ranch together in Texas of all places, but he wasn’t about to complain. Not when Ana nonchalantly slapped a round into the chamber of her rifle and slid it home with a quiet crack that made the hairs stand up on the back of McCree’s neck. One-eyed or not, Miss Ana was still a deadshot with her piece.

He straightened with a wince. “Miss Ana?”

She snorted and nodded her head at him. “Well, what are you waiting for? We haven’t got all night.” Miss Ana made that peculiar clicking sound with her tongue that she only did when she was disappointed in her precious children for taking so long to come to the obvious conclusion, and she made a shooing motion at him. “Go and see what it is.”

Reinhardt, because not even in the privacy of his own head could Jesse call him anything else without bringing shame on the McCree name, smacked the skillet into his other palm as if he was testing its heft. “Go on, we shall watch over the little ones.”

He trusted them. McCree shouldn’t, but there was something about the idea of disappointing the only people who had been willing to pull him off the side of the road and wait until the alcohol had worked its way out of his system. They gave him a job and a reason, somewhere to come back to after a long stint of being nothing but ungrateful.

And then he lost his arm like the damn fool he was, blew it off and left bits of it somewhere near Albuquerque and Paris for all he knew, and they still let him come back home.

Sold him Peacekeeper Ranch for all two dollars in his wallet and the bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand.

So when Miss Ana and her man told him to jump, Jesse McCree did not think to ask twice. He simply plopped his hat on his head and fumbled through strapping his gun to his waist. Jesse tipped his hat as he stomped down the porch steps. “Y’all look after my kids. I’m gonna go see what all the commotion is.”

‘Kids’ was a loose term. What Peacekeeper Ranch really featured, aside from its questionable owner and the loosest interpretation of the concept of staff, was a bunch of teens with a more colorful history than a giant box of crayons. That isn’t to say that Jesse McCree didn’t like them, oh no, because he wouldn’t get rid of his pack of strange brats if you paid him for the privilege.

He tugged his hat over his eyes as he crossed from the wood of the porch to the end of the gated off patch of dirt, dust, gravel, and grass they all joking referred to as the front lawn. Jesse rapped his knuckles against the metal cap of the fence post, and raised his hand in salute. “Y’all be good for Miss Ana and Reinhardt,” he bellowed.

Unspoken was the common knowledge that any tomfoolery on their parts would lead to _consequences_ not a one of them were prepared for and Jesse would not help them with.

He looked back over his shoulder to see the curtains in the windows fall, and the flurry of shadows as his kids raced to be the first ones back in their beds made him laugh. Jesse couldn’t ask for better protection than Miss Ana, not as she settled in quite comfortably in her rocking chair on the porch and balanced her rifle over her knees. Miss Ana was prepared for the long haul, and Jesse might as well get while the getting was good.

Mei met him at the barn door with her usual sheepish grin and unseasonable fur trimmed boots. “Evening, Mister McCree.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with the heel of her hand, sugar glass smile spreading wide across her face as he tipped his hat at her.

“Evenin’, Miss Zhou. Looks like we got ourselves a spot of trouble. I reckon I might go have a look before it gets out of hand.”

She nodded at him, and he resisted the urge to smooth the flyaway hairs down on the top of her head. Miss Ana had been perfectly clear with everyone on the ranch that she considered Mei-Ling Zhou one of _her people,_ right there with the rather dubious connections she had with her man Reinhardt and the ranch’s far overqualified medic Angela. If Mei wanted to sleep in the barn with the horses, Jesse was not about to stop her. In fact, he had helped her move in, even gave up his bedroom until he and Reinhardt could fix her up a nice little nest of her own in the tackle room.

It wasn’t her fault that the accident had happened, and Jesse McCree didn’t spend two dollars and a bottle of whiskey to turn away a kid who needed help from his door.

Mei frowned inquisitively at him. “Take Snowball. Come in; I’ll saddle him for you.” She stepped back from the door and beckoned him into her domain. Jesse chuckled to himself as he followed in her boot steps, with plenty of space between the two for her to be comfortable.

Of course she wanted him to take Snowball, the deceptively dainty little spitfire of a mustang that she had broken herself when Jesse had told her that he didn’t care what horse she got so long as she got one. Money had not been an issue, not with Miss Ana’s careful management of the ranch’s finances.

Mei and Snowball had an interesting relationship, one that probably only worked because she bribed the horse _shamelessly_ with more oats and carrots than any horse alive should eat. But she saddled him up with all of his tack, her hands steady as she went through the well practiced motions. Jesse didn’t mind waiting for her to get it done. He crouched down and stuck his hand out in a vain attempt to see if he could coax the resident barn cat to actually emerge from the shadows for once.

Jesse knew they had a barn cat because his kids had told him so. Miss Ana had even verified its existence. But Jesse McCree had never, in all the half decade he had owned Peacekeeper Ranch, laid eyes on the animal. Seen the glow of its eyes as it calmly watched him from the shadows, yes. Actually laid eyes on the thing to see the color of its fur, no.

Mei held Snowball’s nose in her hands, pressed her face right up against the single white streak on his grey face,  as she rubbed her fingers against the start of his so called white spots that gave Snowball his name. She murmured something in Chinese to him, then rubbed his nose as he lipped at her glasses. The mustang tossed his head a few times as he chewed at the bit, black  mane flying as Mei took hold of his reins and led him out of his stall.

“He’ll run for you, Mister McCree.” She held the reins as Snowball pranced in place. Jesse nodded as he pulled his hat down more comfortably over his brow.

Jesse eyed the horse dubiously. Snowball stared back, and Jesse had a feeling he was going to be in for a wild ride. “Thank you kindly, Miss Zhou.” There wasn’t much he could say to dissuade the resident horse whisperer from her selection of horses for Jesse to ride. Technically, if he squinted and ignored the scribbled names on masking tape under each horse’s nameplate, Jesse McCree owned all of the horses in this barn. But Snowball was _Mei’s_ and there wasn’t a power in heaven or earth that could change that.

He swung up into the saddle with an awkward grasp of a pommel and a brief jogging start. Snowball tossed his head as Jesse scooped up the reins and pulled a little bit before settling himself into a proper seat.

Mei nodded her head as she clapped her hands once. “Oh! Sorry, sorry, I forgot. Doctor Ziegler went back to town for the evening. She said to tell you to keep the medical emergencies to a minimum until she gets back.”

Jesse sighed. Well, it was the good doctor’s day off. If she wanted to spend it in the tiny town two hours away, that was her call. Between the lot of them, Peacekeeper Ranch could float by without her for a couple of days even if she wanted to ever use her god given right to a vacation. Jesse was pretty sure whatever was wrong out there, off in the wild expanse of acres he had signed his name to, wasn’t something that required the talents of their extremely overqualified medic.

Why Miss Ana thought their little ranch needed a doctor with a letter of approval from the United Nations’ World Health Organization, three doctorates, and a resume full of more abbreviations and major political figures as references was beyond him. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t appreciate having what had to be a literal angel of mercy on his side when one of the kids did something unbelievably stupid. But Jesse McCree honestly thought that whatever had fallen out of the sky was a bit beyond even Doctor Angela Ziegler’s capabilities.

“I’ll give her a call in the morning’. For now, I reckon we’ll just see what devil is about at this ungodly time of night.”

If anything, that made Mei frown all the harder and back away. “Be safe, Mister McCree.”

He grinned and knuckled his hat. “I aim to.” And with a click of his tongue and a touch of the heels of his boots, Snowball sprang forward with a snort. Jesse didn’t bother dismounting to unlock the gate. Instead he lined the horse’s nose up with that weak spot in the corral fence that he kept swearing he would get around to fixing (but never did), and took it at a gallop.

Snowball cleared the fence and Jesse didn’t look back. He clicked his tongue and turned the mustang towards the spot of smoke on the horizon.

Out of all the acres the thing had to fall on, out of all the bits of the state, the thing had to fall on Jesse’s ranch. Ten square miles of land, and it couldn’t have fallen anywhere else.

It took a few hours of riding, a few breaks and long enough that Jesse had begun to reek of horse, for the first bits of charcoaled wood to break under Snowball’s hooves. Jesse had kept to the well worn paths, trusted in the horse’s self-preservation to keep it from drifting of course in the dark. Or at least it had been dark before the first licks of dawn had crept over the horizon.

Getting to the thing that had destroyed a rather substantial chunk of his ranch in less than fifteen minutes was easy from there. Aim horse at what appeared to be a smoking crater, and let Snowball do the rest. It wasn’t a large crater by any stretch of the means; Jesse had seen ponds bigger than it. But climbing the sides had to be done on foot instead of horseback, and that took energy Jesse didn’t feel he had.

But he trudged up the smoking and charred incline all the same. It wouldn’t be wise for the state of his continuing good health if he returned to his house without an answer for Miss Ana on just what this particular disturbance even was. Steep as the incline may have been, Jesse scaled that crater on all three remaining limbs and still had enough sense to keep his hat on.

The thing in the crater was still glowing, the brightest and clearest blue he had ever seen. Jesse squinted against the light, the gentle blue burning into him like the sun at high noon. The thing burned and burned, but somehow the only heat he felt through his clothes was that of the morning sun. If anything, the bright blue _thing_ in the crater throbbed like a heartbeat, stopped and started even as Jesse watched. Crouched on the crater’s edge with his right and only arm as his leverage, Jesse could only stare.

It had scales and breathed, writhed in a pattern that looked unsettlingly like a nest of rattlesnakes, and Jesse could barely remember to breathe.

Jesse McCree may not have amounted to much in his thirty-seven years on God’s green Earth, but he recognized a dragon’s head when it stared him in the face. Not one, but two dragons, long whiskers glowing in a breeze that hadn’t blown through Peacekeeper Ranch in days. Heads big as a man regarded him, their imperious stares judging him silently.

When Jesse breathed it was when the dragons gave him leave to. They surged forward in a rush of blue that twined about him and spun until all he could feel was scales and warmth, the smell of horse drowned out by the impossible nostalgia of a quiet night under the stars.

He would do.

But for what, Jesse couldn’t rightly say. All he knew was that he could now mark ‘nuzzled by dragons’ off of his bucket list. They faded as they twined around him, and Jesse found himself in the precarious position of phantom pains in his left arm and nothing but agony in his right.

Jesse was an honest man, or at least he tried to be. So it was with complete honesty that Jesse could say that the very act of having two glowing fire dragons that had fallen out of the sky burrowing into his body and making roosts in his skin did not, in fact, cause him to scream like a little girl. That would have required him to have enough air in his body _to scream,_ a status that Jesse was sadly bereft of.

He rolled down into the crater in a vain attempt to get the beasts out, mind failing to comprehend how two things the size of a man and the length of a tall tale could possibly fit within his body. He came to a rest beside something that felt like an overly soft rock, fingers grasping madly at his shirt in an attempt to pull it off.

There were hands on him, soft and dextrous, that fumble at the buttons like their owner had never seen the like. He wanted to mouth of, say some witty quip about needing to be bought dinner first. But all Jesse had was agony radiating from his arms down to his chest where his heart clenched and faltered. The hands were cool like a breath of fresh air, their owner leaning down to press their forehead against Jesse’s and say something liquid, and everything snapped into focus with a clarity Jesse only had with his gun in his hand.

He breathes with the stranger that holds his heart in the palm of his hands. Jesse stares up at eyes that gleam and shine like the starry night sky, and he feels his heart melt. He doesn’t know this stranger, but Jesse McCree is already more than a little bit in love with them.

Long hair like ink that pools over them both, eyes that crinkle with a scowl that Jesse would kill a man to ease, and a face he wouldn’t mind waking up to in the morning. Yes, Jesse could definitely fall in love with a man willing to stop the agony. It doesn't hurt that the man above him is beautiful in a way that defies logic. Pretty as a picture, his lips to God’s ears; Jesse has never seen anything like him.

Nor, if the feeling in Jesse’s bones is right, will he ever.

“Can you touch my hand? Cuz I want to tell my friends I’ve been touched by an angel,” he manages to slur out around the taste of grit and ash on his tongue.

The man, perfect, shining, wonderful, drops him with a sound of disgust that makes Jesse wrinkle his nose and bleat not unlike a wounded sheep. Jesse misses the stranger’s hand on his chest, and the things in his blood and bones hiss something sibilant and terrifying.

 _Mine, mine, mine,_ they whisper in his ear like the devil himself did to Eve. And when the man flopped on his side, Jesse followed as far as his eyes would allow. And oh, what a sight the stranger was to behold.

Little Miss Hana would say the stranger had what the young folks called ‘galloping abs’. Be still his beating heart, fluttering away like the stranger’s lashes. This here was one of those terrible set-ups from those black and white comics that Little Miss Hana hid under her mattress like no one knew where it all kept coming from. Because no one at all could hear the distinct thumps of Jamison’s self-made peg-leg against the porch as Little Miss Hana carefully dropped it over the windowsill for him to giggle over after mucking out White Rabbit D.Va’s stall for her.

Jesse figured a little ingenuity wouldn’t hurt his kids none, and it was nice to see her smile at something wholesome that wasn’t being shot to pieces on her screen.

If he moves his fingers from where they somehow ended up laced in the stranger’s silky black hair, acknowledged that he was _touching_ the very image of perfection, Jesse was afraid he would disappear. The passing thought made the things that couldn’t possibly be dragons, because no ma’am he was not that irresponsible with his safety Miss Ana, coiled and bunched under his skin. It’s strange that he can feel them move, even stranger that he can’t see them beneath the fabric of his shirt.

What’s worse is that all he can think as he drinks in the sight of the strange man lying next to him in the bottom of a crater, this impossible man with the glimmer of starlight in his skin and the colors of a nebula in his eyes, is _oh._

_This is what it feels like to fall in love._

He wiggles across the ground until his shoulder just barely touches the stranger’s. “Do you believe in love at first sight? Or do you want me to walk by again?” The stranger snorts and permits Jesse to move so he can prop his legs up on the side of the little crater. Mighty nice of him to let Jesse do as he please on his own land. Two dollars and a bottle of cheap gas station whiskey, and Jesse was still damn proud of his ranch.

The stranger is still but for the rise and fall of his chest, and he closes his dazzling eyes even as Jesse sits up. Jesse gets to his feet with a wince, for his old bones aren’t meant for laying in the dirt like a dog anymore, and the stranger’s eyes follow him. The wind picks up and Jesse has to clap his hand to his hat, heedless of the ash and dust that trickles down in a tiny shower.

Snowball whickers from the top of the hole, casting a peculiar shadow that made the stranger flinch. Jesse laughed, a full belly thing that stretched into all the dark hollows in his soul. “Howdy, do ya need a ride?”

He means it as a real question, but the stranger smiles at him and something in Jesse’s stomach flips. That isn’t the kind of smile you give a stranger unless you’re in a dark bar with far too many drinks in your system. He feels warm in a way he hasn’t been in a long time, and Jesse wants to smile back before the stranger gives out a bark of a laugh that cuts through the syrupy haze of ash and heat.

The stranger hasn’t said a word since the dragons uncoiled from the stranger’s still body and ensnared Jesse in their glowing grasp.  But the fragment of a smile on his lips and the look in his eye as he tilts his head to stare the rancher down is enough to keep Jesse’s mouth shut tighter than a nun’s legs in a brothel. “Stars do not _ride,_ but you’re welcome to try.”

Be still his swift beating heart. Bless you Lord Almighty, the sweet baby Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. Forgive him for his sins, for Jesse McCree had committed a fair few of them and was probably going to commit quite a few more in the eyes of the lord, so help him God.

The stranger raised a single brow and pinched the skin between his brows. “Cease with those horrendous lines, please.”

Jesse tipped his hat on reflex with a smile. His revolver hangs heavy on his hip and Snowball’s shadow stretched out as the horse kicks loose stone into the hole. “Suits me just fine, sweetheart.”

“Hanzo. Shimada Hanzo, lord of-” The stranger cuts himself off with a hiss, and the things that have twined their way around Jesse’s bones begin to shake. It’s cold and hot, a pressure like shame that cuts down on Jesse until the only thing he knows is that he is on his knees in the dirt with his hat knocked off and his forehead pressed against the stranger- no, his name is Hanzo and Jesse will remember it until he dies- against Hanzo’s shoulder.

Jesse feels a wave of something like shame that passes over him before the world snaps into focus like it never happened. But Jesse doesn’t let go of the other man, keeps his face pressed into that impossible shoulder and breathes in the smell of ozone and something he can’t quite name but wouldn’t mind putting his mind to. Hanzo, if that was what he wanted to be called, lord or no lord, was a mystery that Jesse would be glad to set his mind to.

“Well then, welcome to Peacekeeper Ranch, sweetheart.”


	2. Domestic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jesse brought home something he shouldn't have, but the Peacekeeper Ranch is a-ok with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I don't even care how late I am. This is getting done if I have to stare at the screen until blood forms on my forehead and words magically appear.
> 
> I'm not fluffy. I'm not good at fluffy. This prompt was the devil's work and _look, I tried_ and thus _no one can judge me._
> 
> **Prompt:** Domestic

Jesse McCree was quite fond of his new houseguest. Or at least, his houseguest by lieu of the simple fact that Hanzo had  _ nowhere else to go. _ Which was fine with Jesse, really and truly. If Little Miss Hana ever saw him astride Snowball with an incapacitated man between his legs, Jesse’s arm tangled around Hanzo’s waist and his chin pressed into Hanzo’s shoulder, he would never hear the end of it. In the event that Jesse McCree was  _ truly _ unlucky and someone saw him on the trail, he would have to answer to Miss Ana Herself as to why he had spent the last hour or so breathing in the smell in an attempt to memorize it.

He wondered if Hanzo would remember that he had to stop at the back of his own home to get Mako to pull Hanzo through the window. Probably not, since someone had managed to smack Hanzo’s shattered legs against the windowsill and the man had passed out.

Well, that was the sort of tomfoolery one had to resort to when you only had the one arm and it itched like the dickens. It wasn’t as if Mako Rutledge, bless his hefty heart, actually minded helping Jesse out. Mako had grunted and shrugged before pulling the limp noodle of Jesse’s hopeful paramour through the window, and Jesse had artfully ignored the shock of black hair against Mako’s pillow in return.

Jesse did not need to know why there was a set of bubblegum pink headphones on Mako’s desk, no sir. All he needed to know was that the contents of that bed would not only stay  _ asleep _ but would not see so much as a strand of Hanzo’s hair on the carpet.

Hana Song, while lovely and bless her heart, was not one to take these sorts of informational dumps lightly. And Jesse?

Jesse might as well have hand delivered the latest gossip to her lap.

Mako held a fat finger against the front of his impossible face in the dark, and Jesse gulped as he tipped his hat. Jesse had seen Mako lift an entire cow above his head instead of herding it into its pen once, and if the masked young man wanted to keep this a secret, Jesse was more than happy to oblige.

It wasn’t like Jesse had much room to judge anyone.

What with that whole part where he had a man in bleeding a faintly glowing blue in his bathtub that had apparently fallen out of the sky.

Miss Ana would laugh until her eyepatch fell off if she could see Jesse now. But for right now, the only thing Jesse could do was shove a pillow wrapped in towels under Hanzo’s head, throw the blanket from his bed over the unconscious man, and run like the devil himself was on his heels. A two hour drive to town could be done in an hour and a half, but it was just sensible to call Doctor Ziegler’s cell and somehow convince her that this was a serious emergency that required her attention and discretion.

He didn’t want to let Hanzo’s hand go, crouched on the floor as he was. God Almighty, he would watch this man sleep for the rest of his life if Hanzo would let him.

Mako cleared his throat and tilted his head. Jesse sighed. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.You just hold on until then.” The things coiled around his heart, tightened and rasped their scales against his thoughts, and he leaned forward enough to press a kiss to one ethereal temple. “Hold on for me, darlin’.”

Stomp down the stairs, wave at the little Youtube star on his couch (had he stayed the night without telling anyone again, who knew), and snatch up the phone from its black plastic cradle on the wall. The yellowed paper with its faded blue numbers had been stuck to the wall next to it for as long as Jesse had been at Peacekeeper Ranch, and Miss Ana had taken care to underline certain numbers twice. Whatever the number next to the little circled ‘w’ was, Jesse had never actually needed to call it. The only number he needed off that slip was one he knew by heart, and shaking fingers pressed the receiver to his ear for his shoulder to hold. He mouthed the numbers as he pounded them in, heart shaking like a leaf as he waited for the dial tone to go through.

“McCree?” Doctor Ziegler’s warm voice, still accented with her native Swiss, was always a breath of fresh air in a crisis. “I am here. What is wrong?”

He wants to take a moment and breathe, to calm back down and give Doctor Ziegler what she needed. “It’s a right pickle, Doc.”

She sits up and he can hear the crinkle of papers around her, the click of her sensible shoes against the tile of her kitchen (and funny how he knows the difference between the tiles in her house). “Ich bin da. Tell me what is wrong.”

Jesse would cry if he was a lesser man. Instead he settles for a choked out sigh. “I’m gonna need a house call, Doc. Think you could sneak around to my room and not use the front door? I’ll owe you one.”

Angela sniffs on the other line. “You owe me from a few house calls. What was it that time with that boy and the horse and a set of speakers?”

The boy on the couch sits up like he can hear her talking about him, and Jesse shoots him a glare even as he scratches his head. “Well, Doc. A man can’t be responsible for all the younguns and their foolishness. But this time will be different. He’s… he’s hurt real bad, Doc.”

Silence on the other end, and then he hears he breathe. “Who is ‘he’, McCree? Have you picked up another wayward stray?”

Jesse has to laugh then, fingers pulling on his hair as the dragons in his bones and blood whisper  _ mine, mine _ and only he can hear. “You could say he’s an angel that got hurt on the fall from heaven.”

“Verstanden. Tell Ana, Mercy is here. I will support you.” She hangs up with a click and Jesse sighs as he hangs it back up before the active tone can drive him mad.

When he turns on his heel, the boy from the couch has perched himself on the arm to stare at him. It wasn’t as if this was shocking, and Jesse merely shrugs and helplessly throws his hand up. “Oh for Chrissake. Boy, what in the Sam Hill are you doing here at this hour? Don't you have school to be getting to?”

What Jesse gets could only be called the most nonchalant wave of a hand he has ever seen. “It’s fine, Eastwood. Miss Ana said I could stay the night since I did so well on my last final. I thought I could go ride Lúcio the Second later.”

“That ain't how this works. You don't even live here.” Jesse puts up what Miss Ana calls his ‘token protest’ with an air of defeat. It’s a ritual at this point, one the two of them can go through without missing a single step. Jesse feels a little part of him settle as he scowls at the ever smiling boy.

Lúcio slips off the couch and does some weird little shimmy that makes Jesse have to hide his smile behind his hand. “Aw, but you like it Eastwood. Now come on, what’s the sitch? Gimme the deets, man. Don’t leave a bro hanging.”

Sometimes Jesse needs a dictionary to understand the things that come out of that boy’s mouth. “What in the name of the Lord? You’re so full of it your eyeballs are swimming. Now get off my couch before you catch your death.”

“Aw, man. Don’t leave me hanging. Who got messed up so bad you had to call Doc?” God give Jesse strength. Preferably in the form of a liquor strong enough to put hair on a bear’s ass in spring.

“It ain’t none of your business. Go back to sleep.”

Lúcio tilts his head, his dreadlocks thumping against the back of the couch. “Naw, man. I’ve been taking a few hours with Doc in her office over break. I can help!”

He shouldn’t. Hanzo seems like the sort of man who prefers to play his cards close to his chest, and Jesse is just the sort of man to let him. That’s not to mention the things in his bones (he’s thinking of calling them Lefty and Righty) that actually  _ purr _ every time he thinks about the tall glass of water that is slowly bleeding thick blue down his bathroom drain.

It’s that thought that pulls Jesse up short. “You best keep your mouth shut. I don’t want the lil’miss to hear about it and give the poor bastard grief.”

The boy snaps a quick salute. “I’ll be quiet as a church mouse, honest.” But the gleam in his eye says otherwise. He’ll be on the Twitter and the Googles in five minutes flat; telling God, Jesus, and everybody all of Jesse’s secrets.

“I’ll let you change Drop the Beat to Lúcio the Second for his next race entry form. As long as you keep your trap shut.”

If Jesse McCree could have hung the stars in the night sky, he wouldn’t have inspired such sudden fanaticism. As far as Lúcio Correia dos Santos was concerned, Jesse McCree was the best human being on the planet.

Lefty and Righty concurred, most enthusiastically. Bone-shakingly so.

“And you can’t put his face all over the... Whaddya call it, the Instragram. Or the Twitter. Or the Googles. He’s a right fine, upstanding gentleman who doesn’t need that from anybody in his time of need.”

Mako grunts from the doorway to Jesse’s room, settled in with Hana’s bright pink rabbit headphones on over his usual ‘angriest pig alive’ mask. He fills up most of the space with sheer bulk, and he grunts once in response to Lúcio’s cheerful wave. Jesse steps over Mako’s girth with a wave of his own, and a meaty hand comes up to steady him when he wobbles.

Lefty and Righty do not approve.

Jesse is of the firm opinion that Lefty and Righty may take their opinions and shove them where the sun don’t shine, bless their little hearts. If you could even say that twin dragons capable of fitting a grown man between each of their gaping maws were in possession of such ignoble things as ‘little hearts’.

Lefty and Righty would appreciate if their human would please hurry up and hold Hanzo’s hand, because he is lonely.

Jesse concurs most wholeheartedly with their plan.

The man in Jesse’s bathtub should be dead. That is an indisputable fact. After four hours of continuous bleeding from mangled legs (blue as the sky, blue as the paint Hana had painted all over the walls when she was still a gap-toothed brat, blue as the dragons that rustle and burn), Hanzo Shimada was still somehow not dead. Jesse had made it his mission to avoid looking at the ruined limbs this miracle had beneath his pants.

He does his best to ignore the shocked hiss the boy can’t help but let out, ignoring it all for the much more useful task of sliding to his knees on the cold tile to press his fingertips against the sides of Hanzo’s face. “I’m back, sweetheart. Miss me?”

Lefty and Righty purr and purr, drown out the world until the only things that mattered were the strange song they sang against his bones and the glimmer of light glinting out from gaps in Hanzo’s lashes.

He doesn’t notice when Lucio tries to bandage the man’s legs and at least try to save something, anything at all. Nor does he notice when Doctor Ziegler bursts into his bathroom with a hum of something mechanical that glows and glows. What Jesse notices is that Hanzo’s eyes are open.

And he is looking right at him.

Only at him.

And Hanzo is still holding Jesse’s hand. But one of his hands seems to be occupied with wiping away tears  _ Jesse didn’t even know he was crying _ from his face. Jesse is honestly all right with that, because he can tell that the man is trying desperately hard to do anything but hurt Jesse. The whole bathroom glows, gold and blue and green in spots where the two lights meet, but the only thing Jesse has eyes for is the look on Hanzo’s face.

Lefty is just as confused as Jesse is, and Righty appears to be busy trying to figure out how to fit a spectral dragon in a bathroom where the paint peeled by the dingy medicine cabinet. This woman and  _ child _ (and Jesse has to reach down deep to find memories of Doctor Ziegler and Lúcio to throw at the dragons until they calm and Hanzo somehow appears to settle with a long sigh) think that Hanzo is broken.

Hanzo is not broken.

Because if Hanzo is broken, then so too must Jesse.

And the moment he has that thought, Hanzo seizes Jesse’s face in his hands, teeth bared in a face so beautiful and perfect it hurts to look at. “You are  _ not broken, _ ” snarls a trio of dragons in his bones and blood, and Jesse yelps.

Doctor Ziegler gives him no mercy or quarter, smacks him with the back end of a metal rod that looks like some futuristic staff of some kind, and shuffles him out of the bathroom. Hanzo protests and she spreads her glowing metal wings (because, boy howdy somehow Doc has managed to become a literal  _ Angel of Mercy _ in his bathroom of all places) wide and the growl in Hanzo’s throat dies.

Jesse gives way because between his all the people in his bathroom, Doc’s wings (glowing bright yellow things that make him think of the sun, warm and friendly) are too much for the tiny room to handle.

“You might not want to tell your friends about that,” she inclines her head slow as molasses, eyes boring into Jesse with the force of a solar eclipse. “The prognosis is rather dire, but I am full confident in my skills. Lúcio shall assist me.” Her heels click against the bathroom tile, metal things attached to impossible greaves.  Doctor Ziegler has gauntlets and a metal breastplate, white and dazzling yellow.

But she smiles at Jesse, and for all her impossible futuristic gear, she still smiles like Angela. “I owe an explanation, after my patient has been attended to.”

Jesse spends the night propped up against the wall across from his bedroom door, hat in his hand and shoulder leaned against Mako’s reassuring warmth. He doesn’t know how long it takes the screaming to stop, but he does register the important details.

Little Miss Hana, draped recklessly on the floor next to him with his thigh as a pillow, popping her gum and reading off the litany of woes that befell the heroine of her latest romance novel addiction. There’s Miss Ana, perched in her rocking chair down the hall with a clear line of sight out the front windows as she polishes her rifle. Reinhardt has taken up the Herculean task of feeding and managing all the horses on the ranch. And Jamison has taken to laughing hysterically as he talks about upgrading his old wheelchair for the new ‘houseguest’.

Mei, bless her little heart, pushes her glasses up from her spot right next to Hana, and cheerfully informs Jamison that she’ll leave him space in the barn loft.

Lefty and Righty alternate between screaming in agony and whispering how proud they were of Jesse for his resilience.

Righty seems to be particularly fond of digging through Jesse’s memories and losing its marbles over the fact that its chosen human has somehow managed to  _ survive without it.  _ This state of affairs is a marvel of the modern world.

(If Jesse doesn’t want to remember that long shocked silence where Hanzo stopped screaming and Lefty had very frankly referred to Jesse as “God’s Chosen Idiot”, so much the better.)

He’s losing his mind. Jesse has to have finally lost what marbles he had remaining from the foolishness of youth. He’s cracked, gone bonkers, gone off the deep end. Check, please, waiter. Please take him off to the funny farm.

Hana nudges her head against Mei’s hand, and the two girls give each other that frank face that Jesse has yet to figure out. He doesn’t speak whatever dialect of eyebrow raises and frowns that the women of Peacekeeper Ranch all appear to be fluent in, and at this moment he doesn’t particularly care to be. All he knows is that he is surrounded by all the most important people in the world and someone has taken his hat out of his hand and he has never been gladder to hear the idiocy of whatever buxom brunette is about to be ravished by some strapping Scottish bear strangler in his entire life.

Jesse doesn’t even care that Hana clearly came prepared and brought the entire series.

They all make it through two books, taking turns and snacking on the vittles that Reinhardt brings them and Miss Ana glares them into taking. She takes a spell on the particularly raunchy parts, and if anyone found the sexual escapades of Miss Evangeline the Pure anywhere near attractive, the frank and brutal way the words leave Miss Ana’s mouth would kill it faster than a dip in the Arctic. Jesse has never been gladder to see joy leave Hana’s eyes before in his entire  _ existence. _

Lefty and Righty have taken one look at all of the inhabitants of the ranch and settled down to burn his blood at what Reinhardt would call a ‘low simmer’ instead of the ‘Devil boil’ that Jamison likes to turn the cow pond into when he’s having a particularly bad day. He can’t help humming along with them when his panic turns his bones to ice and dust.

It’s surprising that Mako is the one who tries to hum with him, letting the deep rumble shake Jesse’s bone until his teeth rattle.

But he is here, in this moment, in this place…

Waiting for mercy. Waiting for a chance to say hello to an absolute stranger that  _ something _ in him wants to get to know better.

Lefty and Righty are of the opinion that Jesse McCree will not be left wanting for very long.

And later, much later when the sun has crept across the horizon and the moon has set up shop with the stars, Doc will open the door to Jesse’s bedroom. She’ll be covered in blue splatters that glow faintly, but she will be proud as proud can be with her futuristic armor and the staff in her hand.

“You can see him now.”

And Jesse won’t care, bolts up from the pile of teenagers and young adults to shove gracelessly past them all. And when his heart thuds in his ears and the man in his bed looks up at him with that careless smirk, Jesse will laugh.

“Well hello there, sweetheart.”

“Hm. Graceless, but you’ll do.”

And Lefty and Righty? They have no problems with the idea of emerging from the burning coils around Jesse’s bones to shove him toward the bed that Hanzo occupies pride of place in.

He could love this man if he had half the chance to try. Hell, he’s already halfway there. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Jesse doesn’t have his hat to tip anymore, but he still sketches the gesture out of nerves and manners alike. “Damn, I thought diamonds were pretty until I laid eyes on you!”

Hanzo tilts his head tiredly from the pillows. He doesn’t say a word, simply reaches his hands up to catch Jesse before he can fall. “Hm. Did it hurt?”

“What?”

The man doesn’t give Jesse a chance to process, not with that blank monotone and the faintest traces of dark blue in the apples of his cheekbones. “When you fell out of heaven.”

Oh. Well that would do it. Jesse smiles. “Not as much now. Stay for breakfast. Reinhardt makes a mean spread.”

If Jesse didn’t know better (Lefty and Righty are suspiciously mum on the subject as they coil about the room before sinking back into Jesse’s skin like water into the dry dirt), he would say that Hanzo was blushing. But Jesse did know better, and so that frown was enough of  a sign to let the other man curl around him Jesse’s own bed.

Whatever this was, it could wait until morning. For now, Jesse would take what he could get.

**Author's Note:**

> My random self can be reached [on tumblr](http://lacelich.tumblr.com/). Feel free to chat away at me, I'm rather friendly, if slow on the replies.


End file.
